TAUNTON — While the state is boasting that public schools throughout Massachusetts had the lowest overall annual dropout rates in more than three decades during the last full school year, school districts throughout the Taunton area either made progress in cutting down their annual dropout rates or maintained relatively low dropout figures, according to data released on Monday by the Massachusetts Department of Education.

Compared with numbers from the previous school year, Taunton High School cut its total annual amount of dropouts by more than half, from 78 dropouts in the 2011-12 school year to 36 dropouts during the 2012-13 school year. Last year, the Taunton had 46 total dropouts throughout the city’s public school district, including the 36 students who dropped out from Taunton High School, according to the data.

With 1,755 total students throughout the district, the city’s overall 2012-13 dropout rate was 2.6 percent, with a 2.1 percent dropout rate at the high school. The district-wide 2012-13 dropout rate is a 2 percent improvement from the prior year’s annual dropout rate (which was 4.6 percent, with 81 dropouts), and a 2.4 percent improvement at the high school level (improving from a 4.5 percent dropout rate the previous year), according to the state data release.

Taunton Public Schools Superintendent Julie Hackett said the newly released data represents important steps that the school district is taking to improve graduation rates. Hackett said the 2.6 percent dropout rate is the lowest in the city’s history. Hackett also pointed out that the past year represented the highest ever four-year graduation rate for Taunton Public Schools, with a total of 81 percent of students who completed their high school education within four years.

“I am absolutely thrilled with our progress on the graduation and dropout rates this year, and we have so much to celebrate in the Taunton Public Schools,” Hackett said. “While the metrics don’t always tell the whole story, it’s nice to see when the statistics actually do reflect the hard work of our educators and community.”

Since the 2004-05 school year, the annual dropout rate in Taunton has been on a downward trajectory. During that school year, the dropout rate was at 6.8 percent in the district and at the high school. The next year it dropped to 5.9 percent. Then the dropout rate decreased to 4.7 percent for 2006-07, and then was up and down for five years, until reaching the latest 2.6 percent dropout rate last year.

Hackett said that the improvement in the dropout rate came after an honest assessment of the situation and work to address areas that needed improvement, such as the 10th grade Hispanic male demographic that happened to represent a high portion of students dropping out of school in Taunton.

“The first thing that we did as a school system is to talk honestly and publicly about the data and what it meant for our students,” Hackett said. “Every administrator submitted goals and ideas for reducing the drop-out rate, and throughout the past two years we have shared strategies for success. Our students, teachers, staff, families, business partners, and school committee went the extra mile as they always do, and with a drop-out rate of 2.6 percent, we did it.”

Hackett also highlighted the Taunton Alternative High School at the former Cohannet Middle School as a “vital” part of the district’s dropout prevention strategy.

“We opened the school a year ago in order to create a personalized learning environment for students for whom the traditional setting was not as effective,” Hackett said. “A concern that we discussed early on was the importance of decreasing the dropout rate at Taunton High School, and keeping a close watch on the TAHS to be sure the drop-out rate didn’t rise. In other words, we didn’t want to solve a problem in one place and transfer the issue to another school. What is so impressive to me is that with a 2.6 percent district rate, a rate that includes the TAHS, we truly addressed the problem.”

Nearby Bridgewater-Raynham had another year with a 1.1 percent annual dropout rate, with the 2012-13 results mirroring that of the prior school year. With 1,522 students at the high school level from both Bridgewater and Raynham, there were 17 dropouts last year. During the 2010-11 year, the school district had a 1.9 percent dropout rate. The school district has continuously held lower than 2 percent dropout rate for all but two of the past 10 years, with the exception of a 3.5 percent dropout rate in 2005-06 and 7.6 percent during the following school year.

The Dighton-Rehoboth Regional School District had its lowest annual dropout rate in 10 years last school season, according to the newly released 2012-13 figures. With just four dropouts during the last school year, Dighton-Rehoboth had a 0.5 percent dropout rate last year, with an 885-person student body.

During each of the six previous years, in descending order, D-R had annual dropout rates of 1.4 percent, 1.7 percent, 1.4 percent, 3.2 percent, 1.6 percent and 4.4 percent.

Bristol-Plymouth Regional Vocational Technical High School, located in Taunton and serving the city along with six surrounding towns, had another year with a low dropout rate. In the 2012-13 school year, B-P had five students drop out, with an overall student body of 1,275 students, giving the school a 0.4 percent annual dropout rate.

During six out of the last 10 years, the regional vocational school has kept its annual dropout rate under 1 percent. The only four years in the last decade that the dropout rate at B-P was above 1 percent, it was also below 2 percent, with a 1.8 percent dropout rate in 2003-04, 1.7 percent in 2004-05, 1.3 percent in 2005-06, and 1.4 percent in 2007-08.

Statewide, Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration boasted that the four-year graduation rate improved for the seventh straight year, with the biggest blows to the dropout rate made in urban school districts and among Hispanic students. Patrick said that the annual dropout rate fell for the fifth consecutive year.

The state’s annual dropout rate declined to 2.2 percent in 2012-13, the fifth consecutive year below 3 percent and the lowest overall rate in more than three decades, the Patrick administration said. Throughout the state, 85 percent of students of students who entered as ninth-graders in the 2009-10 season graduated within four years and got their diplomas last year.

“I commend our students, educators and parents for another year of great progress,” Patrick said. “Let’s keep it going by investing in education because it is the single best way to prepare our young people for work and life.”